David Boies

Boies was born in Sycamore, Illinois, to two teachers, and raised in a rural, farming community. He has four siblings. His first job was when he was 10 years old—a paper route with 120 customers. Boies has dyslexia and he did not learn to read until the third grade. Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell has described the unique processes of reading and learning Boies experienced due to his dyslexia. Boies' mother, for instance, would read stories to him when he was a child, and Boies would memorize them because he could not follow the words on the page.

In 1954, the family moved to California. Boies graduated from Fullerton Union High School in Fullerton, California. Boies attended the University of Redlands, in Redlands, California, from 1960 to 1962, received a B.S. degree from Northwestern University in 1964, a J.D. degree magna cum laude from Yale Law School in 1966, and an LL.M. degree from New York University School of Law 1967; he was also awarded an honorary LL.D. from the University of Redlands in 2000. He is on the board of trustees of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, which is a museum dedicated to the U.S. Constitution.

Boies began his career at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, joining the firm after graduation from law school in 1966 and becoming a partner in 1973. He left Cravath in 1997 after a major client objected to his representation of the New York Yankees despite the firm having determined there was no conflict of interest. Boies departed the firm within 48 hours of being informed of the client's objection and went on to establish his own firm with his friend Jonathan Schiller, now known as Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. It is currently rated 23rd in "overall prestige" and 15th among New York law firms by Vault.com, a website on legal career information.

From 1984 to 1985, Boies defended CBS in the libel suit Westmoreland v. CBS, but after dragging on for two years, the case was dropped. Following the 2000 U.S. presidential election, he represented Vice President Al Gore in Bush v. Gore. In Jay Roach's Recount, which focuses on the case, Boies is played by Ed Begley Jr. In his 2001 book, prosecutor and author Vincent Bugliosi criticized Boies' abilities as a trial lawyer, arguing that Boies "wasn't forceful or eloquent at all in making his points" in Bush v. Gore. "[A]lthough he seemed to have a very good grasp of the facts, he seemed completely incapable of drawing powerful, irresistible inferences from those facts that painted his opposition into a corner".

In 2000, Boies lost the first important file-sharing case which ultimately put Napster into bankruptcy.

In 2001 Boies represented the Justice Department in the United States v. Microsoft Corp. case. Boies won a victory at trial, and the verdict was upheld on appeal. The appellate court overturned the relief ordered (breakup of the company) back to the trial court for further proceedings. Thereafter, the George W. Bush administration settled the case. Bill Gates said Boies was "out to destroy Microsoft". In 2001, the Washington Monthly called Boies "a brilliant trial lawyer", "a latter-day Clarence Darrow", and "a mad genius" for his work on the Microsoft case. In 2006, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP negotiated a major settlement with The American International Group on behalf of its client, C. V. Starr, a firm controlled by Maurice R. …

In 1998, Boies helped Weinstein fend off journalist Ken Auletta's inquiry into Weinstein's alleged rape of Rowena Chiu at the Venice Film Festival. Rose McGowan claimed that Jennifer Siebel Newsom attempted to arrange a deal between her and Boies in an attempt to make her stay quiet about her allegations against Harvey Weinstein whom Boies was representing at the time. In 2017, Boies' firm reportedly directed the Israeli private intelligence company Black Cube to spy on alleged victims of Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuse and on reporters who were investigating Weinstein's actions. Over the course of a year, Weinstein had Black Cube and other agencies "target", or collect information on, dozens of individuals, and compile psychological profiles that sometimes focused on their personal or sexual histories. "Boies personally signed the contract directing Black Cube to attempt to uncover information that would stop the publication of a Times story about Weinstein's abuses, while his firm was also representing the Times, including in a libel case."

Months after Cyrus Vance Jr. dropped an investigation into a sexual assault allegation against Weinstein, he received a $10,000 donation from Boies who was representing Weinstein at the time. Andrew Cuomo opened an investigation into Vance's handling of the Weinstein probe. However, after receiving a $25,000 campaign donation from Boies' firm, Cuomo ended the investigation. Boies' firm was representing The New York Times at the same time. A few days after The New Yorker broke the story "Harvey Weinstein's Army of Spies", The New York Times announced it had "terminated its relationship" with Boies' firm. According to its contract with Weinstein, Black Cube's assignment had been to kill the paper's negative reporting on Weinstein. Boies' involvement in defending Weinstein received criticism from several magazines and newspapers, such as New York, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Bloomberg Businessweek. In 2021, several attorneys resigned from Boies Schiller Flexner, citing Boies' defence of Weinstein as one of the reasons, along with accusations of nepotism within the firm.

Boies served as a lawyer for blood-testing company Theranos. …

His first marriage, to Caryl Louise Maniscalco (née Elwell) ended in divorce. They had two children together, Caryl Louise Boies and David Boies III.

He is married to Mary Boies; they have two grown children, Mary Regency Boies and Alexander Boies, and three grandchildren. Through his daughter Mary, he is the father-in-law of Noah Emmerich.

Boies owns a home in Westchester County, New York, Hawk and Horse Vineyards in Northern California, an oceangoing yacht, and a large wine collection. Boies is dyslexic and is frequently described as having a photographic memory which allows him to recite exact text, page numbers, and legal exhibits. Colleagues attribute part of his courtroom success in part to this ability.

David and Mary Boies also fund the "Mary and David Boies Fellowships" for foreign students at the Harvard Kennedy School. The Boieses give an annual picnic at their home for the incoming Teach for America corps for New York City (300–500 people). They support the Central European and Eurasian Law Institute (CEELI), a Prague-based institute that trains judges from newly democratized countries in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. There is a "Mary and David Boies Reading Room" at the CEELI Institute in Prague.